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Advent 3B | John 1:6-8,19-28
The One?
There’s a moment that occurs later in the story. When this man, John the Baptist, sends his followers to see Jesus. He’s having doubts that Jesus is really the one. He sends them to go out, come back, and testify to the light.
In short, John wants to make sure Jesus really is The One.
I assume most of us understand the sentiment. We have our own concerns about the nature of things and anxiety about our course. We want to “back the right horse” and not “throw good money after bad.” Sentiments that seem logical, but display our ignorant anxiety.
In the midst of that confusion, John sends his followers to get him information.
I’m reminding us of that later moment as we are reintroduced to John’s earlier appearing. Because isn’t this the question:
Is he The One?
The One foretold and The One they have waited for? The One who is to save and The One who unites, heals, confronts, and reveals?
And the people are anxious. They are ready.
John needs to clarify, of course. No, I am not The One. I come before him, preparing his way.
Not The One, but the one who testifies to The One.
John has a place and a responsibility in this grand affair, certainly. But he isn’t The One.
His job is to help us find him.
Testifying
John doesn’t call Jesus The One in the gospel. He calls him The Light. Which is a fascinating image, isn’t it?
Light, illumination, is a clean, evocative image. And it so elemental that we don’t need to unpack it to understand it. It hits us because we like light and fear dark. We need light to see. It is safety and productivity. Hope and inspiration.
And I think it really hits the postmodern world with a fundamental force, because we are so prone to seeing our surroundings as dark.
Study after study shows we worry about rising crime when it is not, in fact, rising.
And this is, of course, a function of our news media, which defines change as news. So, for crime to be news, it must be changing significantly and suddenly. When crime rates drop incrementally over the past three decades, we don’t define that as news. Even as rates are half what they were thirty years ago.
But it isn’t the media alone. It is also our minds that do this work of adapting and perceiving new opportunities to fear and be disappointed. Equal parts human psychology and the American obsession with perpetual progress. A concept directly at odds with how the world works. We’re born, grow, decline, die, and then are reborn. We don’t get to grow forever.
So when we experience decline, we see only darkness. Because it is easy for us to see the dark.
In contrast to our own vision of the world, John is testifying to the light.
The Light
So, in coming to a world concerned with darkness, what does the light look like? John alludes to a passage from Isaiah which gives us some vivid imagery. We just heard this a moment ago.
The light
- brings good news to the oppressed,
- binds up the brokenhearted,
- proclaims liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;
- proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor,
- and the day of vengeance of our God;
- comforts all who mourn;
- gives them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
And then Isaiah describes the transformation all of this brings. It isn’t charity work alone—it is a building up of the community. He compares the people to mighty “oaks of righteousness,” displaying the glory of God. They’ll build up ruins and devastations, repair cities and generations.
In the light, the people will restore.
The Light’s work is building up what we would tear down and leave to ruin. Ruins we fight over. Devastation we inflict and mourn. Because God’s love is Shalom—peace, health, justice, and wholeness.
We, too, are testifiers to the light.
Who certainly see the dark. But we know that darkness isn’t our story. Living in darkness isn’t our life. Jesus is the light of the world. He is our light and life. His ways are our ways.
And he is coming. Prepare.
He is here. Become.
So all of those things which build up darkness, which fill our hearts with fear—into this the light shines, revealing it as shadows.
Sometimes testifying to that is easy.
When you’ve paid off all of your student loans it is easy to tell other people to just pay off theirs. Several years ago, McDonald’s was mocked heavily for a financial guide they wrote for employees which…let’s just say displayed a serious lack of understanding of the costs of things. And how much they were paying people.
When we have a warm home, it is easy to testify to the warmth of Christ.
And when we have food to eat, it is easy to testify to the generosity of Christ.
But the Light comes to us in darkness.
When we’ve got all our lamps on at night, making everything in the room visible, we’re not going to see the light of Christ! What we are going to see is the bookcases that need dusting and the cat scratches on the furniture.
Incandescent bulbs reveal all our imperfections.
The lights we surround ourselves tell us we’re not good enough, our hair looks terrible, and we have too many wrinkles.
We’re not going to see the truth with artificial light.
The light of Christ shows us what it is to love rather than despise; hope rather than fear.
It is in mourning that the light shows us love.
And because we already know this, we are counted on to share this truth.
Of course, we get lost and confused. Forgetting our priority is to love. Our obsession, perfectionism; or our justifications for satisfaction might lead us to fear loss. Loss of community. Decline in the church. Insert newspaper headline here.
We hear the gospel in church every Sunday to remember what we already know. That the light is here. God gave this gift to you, to us. And you know what that light looks like. We have experienced it.
Not as the “success” we flood with artificial lights on the biggest of stages. The light that John testifies to. The light of transforming lives. In baptism and communion. The light of Christ in community; in hope and faith and love.
Piercing the veil of darkness and drawing us out of the pit. Whole, renewed. To be wrapped in arms so tight, we feel swaddled.
We, too, testify to the light. Even when we can’t see it, because we know it is here. It is always here. And testifying to it, helps us see it.